The record sell-off of shares triggered by the terrorist attacks in the US and fears of a global recession have inevitably led to speculation about whether we are at or near the bottom of the market. Analysts are still divided. Nobody is yet prepared to call the bottom and any rallies are being queried as possible dead-cat bounces.

Retail investors could take some comfort from a recent bullish note from the Goldman Sachs chief investment strategist, the legendary Ms Abby Joseph Cohen. This week she raised her recommended equity weighting to 75 per cent of an investment portfolio from 70 per cent and cut her bond weighting to 22 per cent from 27 per cent. Stocks are now more attractive than before in part because they are undervalued, she wrote in a note to clients.

There may be some bargains to be found but getting back into the market is still risky, especially in the light of a Reuters poll of leading Wall Street firms last week, which concluded that the US economy had slipped into a recession and growth would not resume until the first half of 2002.